Today In APIs: Facebook Platform Updates, Temboo API and 17 New APIs

Facebook Platform Updates include restricting content by age and new ad guidelines. Temboo API provides a common way to access 100+ APIs. Plus: Google puts code of all its Cloud offerings on Github and 17 new APIs.

Facebook Adds Age Restriction to API

In its latest platform update bulletin, Facebook has added the ability to restrict content based on age range, especially for applications that need to consider 18+ and 21+ age limits. Other updates include a new ad policy that limits text overlay to 20% of the image for all ads in News Feed, updated developer contact settings to configure which types of Alerts can send you Facebook Notifications and emails. Facebook API users should also check out the list of breaking changes that were announced in November and which go into effect on February 6th, 2013.

Temboo: APIs The Easy Way

Do you find integrating new APIs to be a cumbersome process? Each API is different and each time you need to understand its documentation, authentication, data formats, write the parsing code and so on. Well, Temboo wants to the hard work of navigating the OAuth process, managing credentials, understanding errors and finding the right documentation for you and provides you with a library containing Choreos that abstracts out more than 100+ APIs for you. The Temboo APIs are available as REST calls which you can integrate right away. Client SDKs are also available for Java, iOS, PHP, Python, Ruby and Node.js.

17 New APIs

Today we had 17 new APIs added to our API directory including a meme faces download service, a random number generator, a time-based location tables for astronomical objects, a scheduling and project management service, an ip address lookup service, a philippine payment service without credit cards and a uk web hosting and storage service. Below is more details on each of these new APIs.

All The Rage Faces API: All The Rage Face is a website that hosts image files of meme faces for the public to view and download. These files can also be retrieved programmatically using a RESTful API. Calls are provided for retrieving a single face by ID, all of the faces, all categories of faces, faces by tag, or faces by search.

ANU Quantum Random Number Generator API: The Australian National University (ANU) provides free, truly random numbers to the public. The numbers are considered to be "truly random", because they are generated by measuring the quantum fluctuations of a vacuum, which quantum mechanical theory predicts will be random. Users can retrieve random numbers programmatically by using REST calls issued in JSON format.

Astro-Phys.com Ephemeris API: Ephemerides (singular: ephemeris) are tables of values that give the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given point in time. Object positions are written in terms of right ascension and declination. Davy Wybiral has created the Ephemeris API as a method of querying NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) planetary ephemerides, which are generally created to support spacecraft missions to other planets. The Astro-Phys.com Ephemeris service can be accessed using RESTful calls issued in JSON format.

Celoxis API: The service provides scheduling, collaboration, and resource management functions through both a hosted SaaS platform and installed software. It integrates with popular collaboration tools like Microsoft Outlook and Salesforce.com as well as backoffce enterprise resource planning (ERP) and bug tracking services to define tasks, assign personnel to complete them, set deadlines, track completion, and related functions. It complies with the widely used iCal standard to integrate activities with individual and shared calendars, including Google Calendar.

API methods support creating and updating user accounts, creating tasks, assigning tasks to users, setting deadlines, and tracking task performance over time. Methods support email integration to allow task status updates via emails sent or copied to the service address.

Dazzlepod IP Address Lookup API: Dazzlepod is a privately held web development agency based in Malaysia. The IP Address Lookup API lets users determine real-world geographical location of an IP address or domain by country, region, city, ISP and organization. It returns geolocation information for an IP address. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are foramtted in JSON.

DragonPay API: The service provides payment functionality within the Philippines without processing through debit and credit card accounts. It routes secure payment transactions through funds transfers via that nation's bank network, merchants like convenience stores and pawnshops, and bill payment services. It is intended to provide secure payment processing for market segments that are not dependent on credit cards.

API methods support submission of transaction details such as seller, product purchased, and payment amount along with buyer information including payment account details. The API processes payments and returns confirmation of the transaction status. Methods also support transaction status inquiries, payment cancellation, and retrieval of billing information.

Fast2Host API: The service located in the UK provides hosting for websites and supporting resources to customers worldwide. Web resources are hosted on dedicated servers in its own data center with internet-based access from remote locations. Users of the service control resources provided under their accounts via online control panel functions, either through the service's own interface or via its API.

API methods support management of user accounts, managing hosting space assigned to the account, and upgrading/downgrading service packages. User account methods allow creation of new users, updating of existing account data, assigning permissions to hosted resources, and inactivating users. Methods for managing hosting spaces and upgrading/downgrading work with service packages defined by the service.

Globalstar OSAT API: The service provides an aid to scheduling satellite telephone calls. Its resources are specific to users of the provider's satellite phone hardware and intended to help these users identify windows of available bandwidth based on the locations from which they will be placing calls. Programmatic access provides the same functions available in the provider's interactive interface.

API methods support programmatic access to schedules of access timing for satellite telephone communications. Methods allow designation of a terrestrial location by latitude and longitude along with a desired time period to make calls. Returned data provide periods of projected minimal competing traffic, supporting decision making about call scheduling.

HQCasanova Weekly CO2 API: The Weekly CO2 API is a RESTful serivce providing the latest weekly atmospheric CO2 average as measured at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The data is sourced from MLO's RSS feed. The averages recorded for the same week 1 and 10 years ago can also be retrieved. Responses are formatted in plain text.

IQ Resellers API: IQ reseller aims to decrease costs and increase profit for IT resellers and recyclers who sell, service, maintain and dispose of the global IT infrastructure. The API allows users to move orders from a users eStore flow into your IQ reseller enterprise system without re-entry for inventory allocation and invoicing. An account is required with service.

micropayment GmbH API: The service from Germany provides payment processing for small amounts of money, especially suited to fees for software downloads, content access, and other inexpensive online services. It consolidates functions for conventional debit and credit card charges as well as payments triggered by phone calls or other interactions with mobile devices along with selective disbursement of prepaid account balances. Sellers register accounts with the service, but buyers need not create accounts to submit payments.

API methods support call2pay, a set of functions for one-time payment events or scheduled invoicing for recurring charges triggered via mobile devices. Methods also support disbursement of prepayments by authorized bank transfer as well as conventional charges to credit card and debit card numbers.

MobPartner API: MobPartner is a mobile affiliate marketing platform that aims to provide risk-free performance-based marketing campaigns for advertisers, marketers, and publishers. The MobPartner API can integrate using S2S HTTP or Rest API, and can return XML, JSON, XHTML, or through an XML feed. The service offers 24/7 real-time statistics. 100% fill rate, and dedicated service support.

Research Data Australia API: The service provides a single, comprehensive point of access for research conducted or sponsored by the Australian government or its agencies. The national government has established an Australian Research Data Commons and registry with standardized storage and retrieval methods across research projects with the goal of unified and simplified access to result sets, promoting access to and reuse of data. An additional goal is improved visibility of Australian research within search engine results.

API methods support search access to stored data sets compliant with Open Search and Open Archives Initiative (OAI) formats. Methods support retrieval of data objects from the ANDS registry and of groupings in which objects are organized, including spatial data. Methods also provide lists of registered data sources with descriptive metadata detailing the data they provide.

SensorLogic API: The service provides remote monitoring of server and network resources via a platform-as-a-service (PAAS) model. It offers asset tracking to log performance of applications and supporting resources with reporting of results over time. The service is targeted at network operations engineers and sysadmins but also at original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) interested in performance of their products and at IT managers with responsible for contractual application hosting arrangements.

API methods support remote monitoring of system resources via the service's own platform. Tracking routines periodically access functionality provided by remote networks and record response and performance parameters, with methods for reporting on logged data.

USDA Soil Data Access API: The service from the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides data from soil surveys to support agricultural planning and geographic information about farming activities. Data provide geolocation and temporal data, allowing applications to generate reports against the data for specific locations and regions within selected time periods. The service frees the soil survey data from its conventional download formats to allow real-time access to selected data elements.

API methods support submission of queries accessing data from USDA soil survey results, with potential for selecting particular geographic areas of interest, time periods, and subsets of data. Methods allow retrieval of raw data or mapping layers to support uses in reporting and analysis as well as visual mapping applications. ArcGIS format is supported.

Valutec API: The service provides gift cards to be redeemed by recipients and loyalty cards given to customers as premiums to promote return purchases. It allows merchants to sell gift cards to the public to to initialize them and load cash balances for distribution to customers. Merchants prepurchase the cards, possibly with customized designs, then control the activation and credit balance assignment at the point of sale.

API methods support activation of previously issued cards, adding value, and checking remaining balance as well as charging purchases to the cards. Methods also allow creation and management of e-commerce equivalents of physical cards.

VersionEye API: VersionEye is a service that monitors software repositories for new versions and updates to software that VersionEye users are interested in. VersionEye supports a wide range of package managers and is continuously adding more. It currently supports pom.xml files from Maven2 and Maven3, package.json files from NPM, Ruby Gemfiles from Bundler, composer.json files from packagist.org, and PIP requirement.txt files. Users can access VersionEye's functions programmatically using REST calls issued in JSON format.

About the author:Romin Irani
Romin loves learning about new technologies and teaching it to others. His passion is to help developers succeed.